Trescothick on England’s white-ball quality after crushing defeat to the West Indies in the first One-Day International.
Trescothick has defended his young ODI squad after their crushing eight-wicket defeat to the West Indies.
The West Indies defeat was England’s twelfth ODI loss in 18 games since the 2023 World Cup began, and it served as a harsh reality check for a new-look eleven that featured four debutants.
After being bowled out for 209 on a tacky track, England put up a promising but ultimately unsuccessful show with the ball, with Windies opener Evin Lewis scoring 94 off 69 balls.
“I think it’s certainly not where England cricket is at,” Trescothick said after the game. “Because for a long period of time now you’ve not had our main team in white-ball games. You don’t really know where white-ball cricket is.
“I think with the system that we’ve had and the volume of cricket that we’ve been trying to play and still look after the players, I think you could put a team together tomorrow for a World Cup, and it would probably look different to what you had this series and some of the series that we played against Australia.
“So I don’t think you can judge it to say, look where white-ball cricket is at the moment. It’s been a tough period of time, there’s no doubt about it, but that’s been challenges from numerous different things.”
With Jordan Cox making his England debut at No. 3 in just his fifth List A match and 21-year-old Jacob Bethell at No. 4, the severity of the loss has raised doubts about the country’s unwavering philosophy of favouring youth. Only Will Jacks and Phil Salt had batted in those positions for England more than once in their careers out of the top six.
“It’s probably a better question for the selectors more than anything else. It’s not my decision who comes in,” Trescothick said.
“But I think you can see from the plan of the England team in the last year, probably, and maybe a little bit further back, how much we want to invest in the next generation.
“Playing people who have played before would probably be going against the mantra of what we’re trying to do at the moment.”
“We’ve got to try and bat 50 overs first and foremost,” said Trescothick. “The real skill in white-ball cricket in particular is the tempo and the balance between aggression and batting for long periods of time.
“We will always be a team that is going to try and be aggressive, the pitch made it quite tricky to do that.”